The mysteries and secrets of magic / by C.J.S. Thompson.

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The mysteries and secrets of magic / by C.J.S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    spirit,” while the magician’s art appears to have been chiefly praftised in the form of sympathetic magic or the transferring of a spiritual power into some objeft under his control. The moSt primitive form employed was the wax or clay figure previously mentioned. After this had been modelled in the likeness of an enemy with incantations, nails or thorns were Stuck into it, or it was allowed to melt before a fire so that the human counterpart might suffer similar torment. The prevalence of this praftice in antiquity is remark¬ able. The Egyptians employed it at a very early period and the Jews probably adopted it from them. An allusion to it occurs in the following text: “ If thou wisheSt to cause anyone to perish, take clay from two river banks and make an image therewith, write upon it the man’s name, then take 7 Stalks from 7 date trees and make a bow with horse hair; set up the image in a convenient place. Stretch thy bow, shoot the Stalks at it and with every one say the prescribed words, adding £ Destroyed be-son of --.’ ” The image or figure was also used in the inverse way and was employed by a sick man to drive out a disease- demon that possessed him. A figure of the ailing one was made in wax, clay or dough, and with the proper charms the magician tried to induce the demon to leave the body of the sick man and enter his counterpart. When an Assyrian thought himself bewitched or laid under a spell, he would seek a magician and beseech him for counter charms and incantations against the person who had bewitched him.
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